Join the Be Green Hub for this lunchtime speaker series at Bethesda Green on Thursday, March 21st. Lunch will be provided.

Doors Open: 11:30amPresentation Begins: 12:00pm

SESSION DESCRIPTION

Companies ranging from patagonia® to Warby Parker® to Hootsuite® have successfully scaled while adopting triple bottom line business practices. Essentially, these companies have proven that you can be profitable and still be good corporate citizens. Whether you are an investor wanting to learn more about how B adopters stack up, or an emerging venture aligned with triple bottom line practices, this talk is for you.

This presentation will cover the following:

* The history in a nutshell of shareholder primacy (i.e. profit above all) in corporate law;

* The development of the legal benefit corporation entity and B Corp trade group in response;

Kevin Christopher is the founder of Ridgeline Venture Law, Tennessees first B Corp® law firm and a 2018 Best for the World Honoree. Prior to launching RVL®, Kevin led bioinformatics, bioscience, and biotech development and licensing activities with top secret security clearance at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, steered large scale partnerships in renewable energy and synthetic biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and consulted the National Institutes of Health (NIH)s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. Along the way, Kevin served as a foundational team member or key advisor to startups with algal based protein production, biomass energy conversion, microbiome editing skincare, and hepatocellular carcinoma diagnostics technologies. Most recently, Kevin served as corporate counsel to a boutique therapeutics company with a novel gyrase inhibit- ing antibiotic platform.

Kevin is a Tennessee Bar Association Leadership Lawyer and regular speaker on corporate social responsibility, intellectual property, and leadership. Active in the community, he is an elected official and board member to several environmental and social impact nonprofits.A registered patent attorney, his practice areas include patents and trademarks, benefit and alternative company structures, and technology commercialization. Kevin is also registered in Washington, DC.

* Reclaiming our Technological Posterity at the Intersection of Intellectual Property and Taxation: Uncovering how Patent Pools are Key to Recapturing the Benefits of Charitable IP Contributions, American University Intellectual Property Brief (April 2011).